A site dedicated to G.K. Chesterton, his friends, and the writers he influenced: Belloc, Baring, Lewis, Tolkien, Dawson, Barfield, Knox, Muggeridge, and others.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

St. Benedict

St. Benedict is one of my favorite saints. In honor of his feast day, I scrolled through a few Chesterton works, looking for what Chesterton said about the saint. Unfortunately, I didn't find much.I have to believe there's a lot more GKC/Benedict material out there, but for now, this is it:

We must remember that even to talk of the corruption of the monasteries is a compliment to the monasteries. For we do not talk of the corruptionof the corrupt. Nobody pretends that the mediaeval institutions began in mere greed and pride. But the modern institutions did.Nobody says that St. Benedict drew up his rule of labour in order to make his monks lazy; but only that they became lazy.Nobody says that the first Franciscans practised poverty to obtain wealth; but only that later fraternities did obtain wealth.

The Thing

[I]t is true to say that what St. Benedict had stored St. Francis scattered; but in the world of spiritual things what had been stored intothe barns like grain was scattered over the world as seed. The servants of God who had been a besieged garrison becamea marching army; the ways of the world were filled as with thunder with the trampling of their feet and far ahead of that ever swellinghost went a man singing; as simply he had sung that morning in the winter woods, where he walked alone.